Happiness and a House

April 29, 2013

Maria Contentment, Uncategorized 2 Comments

 

Yes, we have a contract for the sale of our current house.  Thank you for your faithfulness in praying for God’s will and kairos-timing!

But no, that has nothing to do with happiness. (Although we ARE relieved!)

*

Happiness as a concept came up the other day in the middle of a podcast. Listening to 2 professional baseball players describing their dream job gave me pause.

These men are in the height of their ball careers; they are married to women who love and support them; they are followers of Christ and they are what the world would call successful.  What more could one ask?

But when they described their schedules, I thought – “Who would want that kind of life, that kind of day?”  It’s April and their baseball season is ramping up.  A snapshot of their lives reveals this kind of quotidian activity:

They….

·         whizz by middle America while riding on buses, briefly stopping a day or two in forgettable cities

·         crack nuts, spit out pistachio shells while hanging out in dugouts

·         study their Bibles in sweaty locker rooms

·         risk injury and mercurial statistics on the diamonds

·         catch up with wives & children by skyping in the evenings from different hotels

This is what little boys dream of? Sacrifice for? Skip ‘life’ for?     

I thought about what it takes to make me happy – and it boils down to how I get to spend my day.  No matter WHAT the job, WHAT the family arrangement, WHAT the finances, WHAT the health, WHAT the house and stuff…..what makes me happy is:

·         Being well-rested

·         Spending unconstrained time reading my Bible and meditating on what God shows me about Himself, His Love and my future with Him and fellow members of the ‘holy bridal party’

·         Eating healthy food while sharing thoughtful conversation with Mike… other family… friends

·         Walking/ working out an hour a day

·         Keeping up with email, podcasts and blogs on the internet

·         Reading good books each day  

I already have all the above right now in my life. Any other details, including where I work, where I live, where I worship…those are the interchangeable parts.

Maybe you think I’m too reductionist.  But it sure is freeing to know that I don’t have to have anything else to make me happy.

Hebrews 13:5 – Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you”

Holy Work-outs in God’s Gym

April 20, 2013

Maria Endurance, James, Job, Patience, Trials, Uncategorized, Waiting , , 3 Comments

Yesterday I found out that I get to practice patience for 2 more weeks.

A month has crept by since I interviewed for a French-teaching job in Asheville.  As the first candidate, I was prepared to wait a few weeks.  But after 30 days, and with the blessing of my husband, I emailed the head of the middle school. Result? She has one more teacher to evaluate and then will make her decision.

Imposed waiting has given me time and motivation to study the biblical context of God’s commands to endure, trust, wait, hope, pray, and expect as well as to inspect the quality of my attitude that surrounds these actions.  Am I obeying God in a peaceful manner or anxiously, with quiet confidence or desperate frenzy?

What I have realized is that this waiting period is God’s gift to me.  It’s a personal, tailor-made course in how to take the long view of God at work. God is actually offering me the opportunity to try Him, to take Him at His word and see if I come up short.  And God is SO confident of His own character, that He is risking nothing.  It’s as though He boasts, “Go ahead, try me, see for yourself if I am sufficient for you this day and each successive day when you DON’T see any way forward, when you DON’T see any results, when there ARE NO OFFERS on your house and NO JOB OFFERS yet or Mike’s FIRST CLIENT has yet to show himself.  And I think He actually trusts ME to accept the challenge to lean on Him and prove to myself and to my watching friends that He is reliable.  As G.K. Chesterton quipped:

      “The problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried & found wanting……… but that it has not been tried!”

When the early church was facing her own trials, James encouraged those young believers to trust his older half-brother Jesus and what He had promised, waiting patiently while relying on God’s characteristics: (James 5: 7-11)

7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

As Mike and I round the corner of our last 6 weeks in Virginia, my take-away TODAY from this experiment with God’s faithfulness is this:

HYPOMONE – the Greek word (Strongs # 5281) for endurance. HYPO means under and MONE means stay.

I am to STAY UNDER God’s provision this day.  He gives both MANNA for the day and MERCIES for the day.  Both fall under His day-tight, measured-out provisions of grace, long ago stockpiled for each of my days.

If I run ahead of Him in my mind to the ‘what-if’ tomorrows, I run out from under and away from His provision.

Isaiah knew whereof he spoke when he counseled in 26:3,

“God will keep you in perfect peace, if you keep your mind fixed on HIM.”(my paraphrase)

It’s a choice – fix my thoughts and mental energy on my worries/circumstances?  Or fix my thoughts & mental energy on God’s character, God’s promises, and God’s past dealings with and provisions to both those in the Bible and me.

So thank you, Father, for this good gift of a trial. You’re training me to be a stronger & more effective spiritual athlete.  I’m a runner in Your race, chasing hard after the prize.  Jesus, my champion and coach, dances enthusiastically at my side, all along encouraging me.  This is the hilly part and I’m running hard.  If I take my eyes off of You, I’ll look at that incline and grow tired.  So help me!  Remind me to thank You for how You’ve already provided.  Remind me to take comfort in Your guarantee that Mark records in 11:24 –

            Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you are receiving it, and it will be yours.

So THANK YOU for:

·         My future job

·         The right buyer for our house

·         Those clients for Mike’s business

·         The provision of our future house

·         Our new church family

Reflections on marriage – both kinds.

April 14, 2013

Maria Christ's work on the Cross, Ephesians, Marriage , 2 Comments

"I know what I'm getting into, Mother!"

“I know what I’m getting into, Mother!”

 

It was our anniversary last week. Mike and I have been laughing and smiling through memories, all of them bathed in deep gratitude to the One who has kept us faithful to our covenant.  Holy Spirit super glue comes highly recommended.

There was that 20th anniversary cruise to which months earlier we had blithely invited MY dad, our boys Graham & Wes and Graham’s classmate & good  friend Rob. By the time we set sail in April of 2000, deep fissures in our marriage had surfaced. Walled-up tight, we barely talking to one another.  We slept in separate bunks in our cabin, keeping up the charade of a happy anniversary celebratory cruise.  It was awful.

But thanks be to the God who can heal marriages and who preserves the best for the 2nd half! (Here’s to 33 more years!)

While cleaning yesterday, I gained a deeper insight into marriage and the church.  Following my routine for manual labor, my ears were glued to a podcast.  Two Christians were ironing out the actual significance of Christ’s work on the cross.  Between dusting and scrubbing,   I caught a new understanding of something called ‘penal substitutionary attonement’.  That’s the doctrine that holds to Christ dying in our place, submitting to the legal punishment due us and absorbing God’s justifiable wrath toward sin.

The Christian opposed to ‘PSA’ advocated ‘Christus Victor’ as the label for what Jesus accomplished.  This view holds that Christ defeated the evil powers of darkness arrayed against God, but that no punishment was meted out.  He explained further that far from holy justice, actual INJUSTICE would be done were an innocent man punished for something he didn’t do.

The orthodox Christian explained that it was FITTING and APPROPRIATE for Christ as both head & husband of the Church (the called-out believers are the bride of Christ) to die and pay the penalty for her sins.  We are one with Christ if we are IN CHRIST.  No innocent 3rd party was pulled in off the street and made to suffer this sentence.

All of a sudden I SAW why Christian marriage is such a big deal.  It is the down-to-earth illustration of Christ’s relationship to us as Church. I had always known Paul to say that explicitly, but never understood it.

          Eph 5:31-33 – “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

New realizations flooded me as I saw more clearly what Mike does for me as my husband. HE actually is responsible for me.  If I err in any way, in one sense, he takes the blame.  We are one; what I do affects him and vice versa.  Only God holds HIM accountable.

What woman wouldn’t want to tuck herself safely under that kind of God-appointed covering?  If God describes that as submission, I happily submit and will pray all the more for my dear husband.

Jeff, our pastor, preached on the role of husbands today, taken from 1 Peter 3:1-7.  I love his quote attributed to Matthew Henry:

          Eve was not taken out of Adam’s head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.

Since husbands are called to serve & die for their wives as Paul explains, it seems a little thing to respect and honor them in return. Thank you, Father, for your planned protection.  I DO plan & carry out silly, stupid things occasionally.

Divine Geometry – The Trinity

April 10, 2013

Maria Joy, Trinity, Uncategorized , , , 1 Comment

Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God –  (John Wesley)

You were created by a community to exist in community made in the image of a God who has never known anything except community – (author unknown to me!)

**

I’m treading difficult waters, as you can see by the first quote.  Yet, since community is in my blood, so to speak, God wants me to grapple with this complex but real entity.

Ever since my friend shared with me an idea of how the trinity is more than just 3 dimensional, I’ve been secretly snacking on this never-ending concept.  Her point is that there’s a synergistic, multidimensional – MORE THAN THREE- nature to the trinity.  Somehow God’s math adds a mystical, multiplier affect.

Presuppositions:

1. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are 3 in one.  They are ONE God.  We are monotheistic people, yet…it’s complicated:

  • Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
  • “And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. (1 John 5:6b)
  • Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6)
  • “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Is 9:6)

2. To be born again, you first have to die with Christ.  Given spiritual life, you now have a new nature.  You are forever different.

Your spiritual DNA has changed:

  • “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)

3. Those who are born again, have the Holy Spirit in them permanently:

  • “And it is God who ……  has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” (2 Cor 1:21-22)
  • “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:13-14)
  • “…..Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:27)

So by means of some simple logical deductions, we can conclude that –

If you are a Christ-follower (born again child of God), then you have the Holy Spirit IN you permanently.  And since the HS is part of a triune divine spiritual being, you actually have all 3 members of the Godhead in you.  And these 3 members are FAR MORE than 3-in-1.

**

When I wake up in the morning, I used to say, “Good morning God!”…then I got more personal and offered, “Good morning, Father!”….now I am addressing a community of 3 supernatural persons  – eager to join me for my day. “Good morning, Holy Community!”  They’ve been awake and active all night (no need to sleep!) keeping the universe going and bringing about the per-determined circumstances for the day.

Just think – this is no mere 3 dimensional divine figure.  We’re talking about a joy-filled, dancing, creative, celebratory, energetic, personal, compassionate, no-limit, über-everything , multi-dimensional God inside of us. And He wants/they want to be totally involved in all that we are doing this day.

Let’s enter the joy!

Why is sin such a big deal?

April 1, 2013

Maria Idols, Sin, Uncategorized 7 Comments

What is the big deal about sin? Why does my sin affect God?

This past week leading up to Easter had me pondering:

  • why Jesus had to die

  • what God’s wrath is all about

  • whether God is angry with me or my sin

  • how my sin diminishes/ tarnishes God’s holiness

Where I want to start is when Jesus confronts Saul.  Do you remember when Saul eagerly left Jerusalem with authorization to seize practicing Christians in Damascus?  Here was a man proudly travelling along Roman roads imbued with full authority and power from the Jewish High Priest, definitely ‘ in the right’  or so he thought.  And the living, resurrected Jesus interrupted his life in a tangible, unforgettable way with the question, “ Why are you persecuting me? “  Acts 9:4b

How had Saul even interacted with Jesus?   The only explanation is that what affects a Christian directly affects Jesus OR actually speaks against Jesus’ character.

And if Jesus is God –  John 10:30, then when our sin affects another believer, then we are hurting God or saying something that disparages His character.

Let’s take some examples –

  • I say something untrue about another person, or spew angrily at them….well that is the same as using hurtful words against God

  • I take something without permission from another person actually trumpets:  “ What God has given me is NOT enough, so I have to get it myself.”

  • I engage in premarital sex or outside-of-covenantal-marriage sex which hurts MY body and therefore hurts Jesus.  My impure actions also trample God’s rules and say in essence:

           “You, even though You are my creator, do not know what is best for me”

  • I am most happy and spend my thoughts in the area of my current ‘idol’, whether it is my technology, weighing a certain amount, decorating my house to a standard, having my peers think highly of me in my job, managing my kids to a certain standard….  Serving my chosen idol again is direct disobedience to God’s 1st and 2nd commandments and says, “ I have the right to choose what is most important in my life”

But why does God get SO mad about these ‘sins’? What if my ‘sin’ just hurts me?  Or at most what if my sin of choice involves the full consent of another person and doesn’t affect anyone else? What if I don’t believe that my body belongs 100 % to God?

Actually the above 3 ‘ what-ifs’ don’ t correspond to reality and therefore, are not TRUE.  I’m living a lie if I operate on the basis of autonomy.  I am NOT my own.  I did not create myself.  I belong to an ‘other’, the triune God.  So even were I to live all alone in a cabin in the woods, (think Thoreau), I could be generating one unspoken lie about God after another, besmirching His character.  And even if another human were not witness, the entire Spiritual realm would know.  The angels would be vehemently protesting, “  Father?  are you going to let her get away with saying You are not loving-enough, not trustworthy enough, not fast enough, not just enough and not enough of a provider?”   And the demons would be rubbing their hands gleefully and chortling, “ See!  You can’t satisfy her!  You go Girl, you know what is best for your life!”

All sin is, therefore, a lie against God.  And for God to be 100 % love and light and pure and holy, He has to protect the integrity of His name, that is His character.  His name represents all His attributes, abilities and qualities.

I don’t understand it fully, but I trust God when He says that my holiness and thereby my happiness (think:  ‘ blessed are you when…’ ) depend on my respecting, obeying and upholding His character.

One last point, and it is by no means a little detail.  Why did Jesus have to actually DIE when He took on our sins. Without going into massive detail about how and why ‘ the wages of sin is death’, it helps me to think of sin like this:  all sin murders God’s character.  We have no problem understanding that premeditated murder requires the killer’s life as just payment.  So it is for each ‘ truth-dissing’  sin.  And God IS truth.

Now aren’t you amazed and dancing for joy God the Father accepts Jesus’ death on the cross as just payment for all your past, present and future sins?  Hallelujah, what a Savior!